- The release of the latest immigration data indicate that
illegal aliens adjusting their status drove 'legal' immigration levels
to more than one million in Fiscal Year 2001. With the exception of a one-year
spike caused by the illegal alien amnesty of 1986, this is the first time
in nearly a century that immigration has exceeded the one million mark
and the 1,064,318 people admitted represent a 65 percent increase in just
two years.
-
- The new data, released just prior to the start of the
Labor Day Weekend ö presumably to minimize attention to the dramatic
increase in immigration levels ö reveal that some 215,000 illegal
aliens living in the U.S. were granted legal status during FY 2001. Even
more startling than the number of illegal aliens granted permanent residence
under adjustment programs like Section 245(i) is the revelation that an
additional 970,000 adjustment cases are still pending.
-
- Provisions in the law such as Section 245(i), which the
Bush Administration and many in Congress are hoping to revive, have proven
to be a massive and ongoing amnesty program for illegal aliens. One in
five people who became legal U.S. residents in FY 2001 were people who
had either entered the country illegally, or remained here after the expiration
of a temporary visa.
-
- "No matter how overcrowded many of our schools are
becoming. No matter how many emergency rooms and public health care facilities
have to be closed because of a dramatic rise in uninsured immigrants. No
matter how it effects wages, jobs, affordable housing or the environment,
there appears to be no limit to the willingness of our political leaders
to pander to ethnic voting blocs and to cheap labor interests," stated
Dan Stein, executive director of <http://www.fairus.org/>FAIR.
-
- "When it comes to immigration, the American public
has been lied to more often than the shareholders of Enron," commented
Stein. "We were told by the previous administration that immigration
levels - already excessive in the eyes of most Americans - were likely
to decline. That assurance turned out to be untrue. We were told that Section
245(i) would benefit only a small number of people who had fallen 'out
of status' because of bureaucratic delays in completing their paperwork.
It turns out that 'small number,' in FY 2001 alone, was actually equivalent
to the population of Akron, Ohio, and that there are nearly another million
such people in the pipeline.
-
- "In light of the latest data, it is time for some
explanations out of Washington," Stein continued. "The president
and Congress need to explain to the American public why immigration levels
of more than one million people a year, one-fifth of whom have broken our
immigration laws, is beneficial to the country. How is the average American,
who is not an immigrant or an employer of immigrants, better off as a result
of a 65 percent increase in immigration levels? And, after the tragedy
of last Sept. 11, how are Americans made more secure by massive amnesty
programs that grant hundreds of thousands of illegal aliens legal status
in our country with only the most cursory of background checks?"
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